The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies organized the lecture The Impact of the Crusades on Sunni-Shia Relations, delivered by Dr. Mohammed Shanqeeti of Qatar Foundation's Faculty of Islamic Studies, as part of its series of monthly lectures.

The lecture provided an overview of historical Sunni-Shia relations in Egypt and the Levant  with the backdrop being formed by the First and Second Crusades (during the 10th and 12th Centuries AD), but also provided some novel insights into these historical realities. One of the most important of these conclusions is the role which the Crusades played in halting the expansion of Shi'ism during the 12th and 13th Centuries, and thus paving the way for Sunni dominance in the wider Levant region.

Shanqeeti also devoted some attention during the lecture to the development of historiographic writing on Saladin, starting with those writers who were contemporaneous to him, and going up to the present day. Shanqeeti concluded that there were several factors which played a role in determining a historian's attitude towards the figure, one of which being the writer's own personal sectarian background. Interestingly, Shanqeeti pointed out that a historian's sectarian background had in fact become a more important factor in determining the attitude towards Saladin as time went on.